In the midst of the wall which joined the cliffs on either hand stood the door with its tiled porch. It had aged, and the stone of the lintel was worn away; the wood of its panels was worm-eaten and crumbling into powder here and there; but the bell had not changed. Its sound came from my distant boyhood, so bright and clear that I could have wept at it.
We waited for a few moments.
At last some wooden shoes clattered.
“Is that you, Guilloteau?” said a voice with a trans-Rhenish accent.
“Yes, Mr. Lerne.”
Mr. Lerne! I looked at my guide with eyes wide with wonder—What! Was that my uncle speaking like that?
“You are early,” went on the voice. There was the metallic sound of moving bolts; then the door was opened ajar, and a hand was passed through it.
“Give me them.”
“Here they are, Mr. Lerne. But there is some one with me,” said the postman in an insinuating and timid way.
“Who is it?” cried the other—and in the fissure formed by the hardly opened door, he appeared.